Previously, the company compiled reports for this purpose with data from the contact centre management system. "Every report took time to code, test and release and tied up IT resources," says McFarlane. "We needed a tool that could provide a holistic view of our data and give insightful trending by seamlessly and easily integrating various different systems. We wanted to decrease our reliance on IT and of course there were considerations of cost and time."
In 12 years as a BI executive, McFarlane had been exposed to many BI tools. "I wanted to see what QlikView could do, so we invited a demo from a Durban-based partner, Insight Consulting."
Upuli de Abrew, director at Insight, says it developed a proof of concept (POC) analytical model, incorporating PTP and collections data. Sceptical at first about the claims of quick development, deep, user-driven analytics, ultra-fast queries, and flexible, consolidated presentation, McFarlane was impressed by the POC. "The company proved that the system could easily meet all our requirements and more and that the value-add would be large. We chose it as our main information platform across the business."
The first data model to be built was a fully-fledged collections model. To this end, Blake acquired the company's Enterprise Server with client access licences and a large, powerful server. "The hardware had to support the high data volumes of a contact centre and the transformation of complex data from disparate sources into simple, easy-to-use system data models," De Abrew explains.
She says while initial development was concluded fairly quickly, enhancements and refinements were introduced later. "Blake revised its key performance indicators [KPIs] a few times, which required changes to the logic. Fortunately, the system lends itself to agile, iterative development."
De Abrew notes that many of the users were BI novices and were at first reluctant to change their ways. "But once the ease-of-use was demonstrated to them, it became a non-issue." Soon after go-live, the tool became fully utilised. In addition to good user acceptance, the in-house BI team has begun developing new data models themselves; the first a telephony model that monitors calling stats with a view to improving staff efficiency.
McFarlane says the new BI tool revolutionised the company's information culture. "Blake had never had such easy access to information, or such deep analytics or easy views."
"We've only done about 40% of what we want to achieve with the system," says McFarlane. "In time we want to do a systems-wide implementation to get a holistic view of our HR, finance and operations, to enable better strategic decisions across the business, seamlessly and without effort."
